English Version:
Minimal Criminal is relatively new psygressive project from Brazil. Members are Valerio Zhyin and Bruno Echoes, who have quite various musical experiences from the past. You can find their original and quality stuff on several compilations, which are dedicated to this sub genre. In case of your further interest you can visit their website www.minimal-criminal.com

How are you?

Pretty good..same as usual, working on music production full time, every day. I have 4 different projects going on, so I’m a pretty busy boy.What´s your plans for the nearest future? Can we expect another piece on some compilation, or even debut album?

Well, an old track of ours, ZULU PAZUZU, was released recently on a compilation called "THE LURKER" from COSMIC CONSPIRACY records. It’s a killah cd!
In 2007 COSMIC CONSPIRACY will release some more of our tunes. Besides that, i’m talking with a few new labels about other releases. How come it happened, that unknown project started career on Zenon Records compilation, and on the top of that, in cooperation with somebody like Krumelur? Btw. do you like his new LP?

That track ," Reefer And Barbeque", was our first really professional track..all our tunes before that one were not so good.It took us a
year until we reached a decent level of production quality. We were in contact with Fred (Krumelur) for quite some time before he came to brazil. My partner, Bruno, and I had been big fans of his music.
He stayed over at Bruno’s house when he was in Brazil.
Yes, his new cd is really special. definitely some of the most
psychedelic music there is.

On your website you have samples of your unreleased tracks. Are they intended for paid download directly for your fans, or are you waiting for some response from record labels?

We’re going to have those tunes ready for paid download very soon.

In connection with recent bankrupcy of online psy CD shop Chaos Unlimited - do you think, that paid download (in 320 kbps mp3, wav or FLAC) offered directly from musicians or record labels, eventually through platforms like Beatport etc. should be the future of not only psytrance, but of the whole electronic scene?

I’m not sure about that..I don’t think about it so much. I still like
cds

One of you experienced quite succesful career in metal group. It seems like quite a lot of former metalists are now somehow interested in psy scene. Have you got any reasonable explanation for this phenomena? :-)

Hehehe, yes ,that’s me. I still produce black metal in my project
called THOKKIAN VORTEX. The big difference is that I produce it all
myself on my computer and synths.
I’m not exactly sure why there are so many ex-metalheads in the psy scene.
Maybe it could be because this style of electronic dance music is more
aggressive and powerful than other genres.

I’ve always been rather open-minded towards music. before I got into
electronic dance music, I listened to progressive rock bands from the
70s and electronic projects like Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze ,
Tomita, and Kitaro.

Both of you have got your own solo projects (dark EBM/futurepop or housey stuff). Which direction is more important for you - solo projects or Minimal Criminal?

First there’s my ebm/gothic electro project KAIAPHAS, which is more
like a band because we have a female singer/synth player (Lady Omega),
and a guitar player(Lienhard).
We’ve played a handful of gigs here in brazil.
Then there’s my black metal solo project,THOKKIAN VORTEX, which
doesn’t perform live.
Finally, there’s my electro/psy-techno/prog house project, ZHYIN.
ALL these projects are equally important to me but ZHYIN is the most
challenging.
Bruno has an electro/proggy project called PORNSTAR and a dark full-on
project called DOPPED with our friend, Kaka(MAGMA OHM/ULTRAMIND)

How does your cooperation in studio look like? Do you use a lot of hardware stuff, or do you prefer work on computer?

Bruno and I are most often producing individually in our separate
studios.
Some MC tunes I produce myself, some tunes bruno produces himself, and
some tunes we produce together.
We don’t use much hardware, just our audio interfaces and my Virus
Indigo synth.

How does Brazil psy scene look like? Have you got any tips on interesting/new producers or projects?
Bruno is more in touch with the brazilian scene than I am. He’s the
one who knows more about new projects and stuff like that.
Most of the party people here like typical full-on and/or popular proggy stuff
like D-Nox, Son Kite, Atmos, etc..
some like dark full-on madness. Especially in the city of Belo
Horizonte.
Finally, some people like the minimal/psy-gressive style which we produce.
However, these are few.
Some brazilian projects I like are Xavier, Sylosound, and Lunaire.